MOUNT PLEASANT, Wis. — The Mount Pleasant Village Board unanimously voted to approve Microsoft's expansion plan to a Racine County data center site.
The village board took up the massive proposal Monday evening. Microsoft plans to make a major investment in the area, including spending billions to expand its data center footprint in Mount Pleasant.
The tech giant announced earlier this year they will spend $1 billion on 300 acres of land to create multiple data centers. Now they are set to purchase more than 1,000 additional acres in the village, some of which were already assembled for Foxconn, in hopes of expanding the project by $1.4 billion.
The company proposed acquiring 630 acres from Mount Pleasant with the remaining land from private landowners within TID 5.
Everyone who spoke Monday night was in favor of the the partnership's future impact on the region.
One public comment saying, "this isn't just a data center; it's a partnership that will shape the future of Mount Pleasant and Wisconsin and will leave a lasting legacy for generations to come."
Members of the village board's team, like Attorney Alan Marcuvitz, say Microsoft is already two years ahead of schedule on their proposed groundbreaking from their Spring deal.
"Microsoft promised us they would break ground in early or mid 2026," said Marcuvitz. "If you go by the site, you can see they have already begun the process. Microsoft has kept every promise and then some, and I think they take a lot of pride in being ahead of their promises."
Village President David Degroot saying that this deal would not have been possible without the former Foxconn investment in 2017 which received criticism over the years.
"We didn’t get there quite the way that we thought we would, but we still got there," said Degroot.
The Racine County Board will now vote on the project during their meeting Tuesday night. If it passes there, the land will be transferred to Microsoft by the end of this year.
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